The problem is that it hasn't been 'little edits' like Leland said. Its been tossing out and ignoring whatever they have to so that they can fit Lucas's new ideas for his pointless tv show in. That's what is causing a lot of problems.

Leland is talking about the EU. GL plays in a league of his own, which Leland has no control or authority over. Many fans don't seem to get this, and are outraged by how poorly his statements and implied promises reflect the reality of what the PT and TCW gets to do.

All roads lead to Rome...I mean, Lucas.

Leland is still hinting at having to clean up after him._________________Perfection is a lifelong pursuit requiring sacrifice. The only way to get it quicker is to sacrifice the most.

If your view is correct, then it would be canon that Mara Jade Skywalker wears a catsuit at all times - and we know that's not true.

Worse yet; in this light Mara doesn't EVEN exist in canon....

GrandMaster wrote:

Mad Wook wrote:

I actually think that's an interesting idea for the Genndy show to be a holonet show in-universe. That puts a crazy spin on it.

And I am still completely baffled by people's negative opinion on personal canon. As long as people don't bring it into a discussion, who the hell cares or is affected by another's inner or personal canon. What is in someone's own head and imagination is absolutely no one else's business. Just as long as they don't bring it into a discussion. Just don't get this....

My personal problem with personal canon is that the use of the word "canon" is used completely inaccurately. Canon describes what is officially recognized, so it can't be used to describe one person's individual preferences. And I have seen it get used in discussions, which really doesn't help anyone.

And yet Lucas himself treats Canon like Personal Canon. THE CANON itself can't stand up to him. If Canon isn't canon you can't have a solid continuity and thus SW is as GL has made it. :D

After all isn't Lucas doing just what your problem states? It's currently being used to describe ONE PERSON'S individual preferences. And the biggest rub is that ONE PERSON can't keep their story straight. Meaning he is so used to not worrying about what IS canon that there are now issues with the continuity, both in terms of his own G-level Canon and the overall EU. This is the nature of writing a story over decades and continuing to add and modify it as you go. But to pretend that canon is official today and will continue to be tomorrow is a joke. It keeps shifting. Sure we can pretend that this is not true. But even Chee can't pretend that this is all planned out and canon from the go. It's only canon cause GL has carte blanche with his universe. Unfortunately the people selling SW tell us it's all one universe at one minute only to turn around and say the opposite when the maker himself proves it's not the case and should never have been. Cause he sure isn't going to consider the Star Wars books we buy HIS STORY._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Last edited by illogicalRogue2 on Sat Sep 15, 2012 4:01 am; edited 2 times in total

Yeah, "personal continuity" is better. It just helps to avoid confusion, especially since Star Wars has multiple levels of canon.

It's worse than that- SW in fact has three tiers and those tiers are internally tracked with Chee's Holocron- and it is those LEVELS people mistake for canon, these are only for tracking purposes, and internaly for that matter. After all if TCW is canon why create a new canon level for it if it's just G-level canon, aka THE CANON? See many confuse the levels for the defining aspect of continuity.

The tiers are where it's at.

Father Tier(What the Holocron considers G and T-level canon) This is the movies and all the tv projects Lucas has personally worked on. ie The Holiday Special and The Clone Wars... Apparently Clone Wars stopped being his project when the 2nd incarnation came along. The Father Tier is considered what you're calling Canon in this case.

The Son Tier - the EU - this is considered it's own universe - unfortunately the EU still blindly follows the father tier into any continuity issues that the Father might get into in the disregard for a cohesive story. If this wasn't the case- many if not all EU fans could be silenced.

The Holy Ghost Tier- this is the fan fic and things that don't fit with much of anything.

The issue many fans have with the tiers is that it leaves us with the impression that Lucas himself considers the EU as fanfic.

We just have to ignore any implications of insult that may or may not come with this realization and we're fine.

But the levels that we get hung up on. Those are just an internal tracking system... nothing more.

Some fans see Lucas as telling but a VERY small window into the galaxy he created. Sure he created it- but he didn't help keep it grow. He's only concerned with a small time frame and nothing more. For those who enjoy more than his narrow dogmatic view of the SW universe the handicapping of the story to his vision is tiring. Set Star Wars free, or divide it as it REALLY IS.

That's the conflicted thoughts of many EU fans. Sure we WANT to enjoy the canon but it keeps changing every week at Friday, now Saturday.

Another fun fact: Star Wars canon was first defined in the first issue of the Lucasfilm magazine, Star Wars Insider:

"'Gospel,' or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelizations. These works spin out of George Lucas' original stories, the rest are written by other writers. However, between us, we've read everything, and much of it is taken into account in the overall continuity. The entire catalog of published works comprises a vast history—with many off-shoots, variations and tangents—like any other well-developed mythology."

Holy SITH! It actually says that the novelizations counted. (unless they only were referring to the film novelizations but they didn't say that.) But as with Lucas he has since retconed what he put in place back then._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

OOh, The father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... in light of that I want to invoke my own Personal Canon Tier:

The Father: The original theatrical versions of the Star Wars movies.

The Daughter: The EU.

The Son: Guess who.

Now let us watch as The Son gleefully raises the Dagger of Retcon towards the Daughter..._________________The absurd man thus catches sight of a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given, and beyond which all is collapse and nothingness. He can then decide to accept such a universe and draw from it his strength, his refusal to hope, and the unyielding evidence of a life without consolation.

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:52 am

Message

DarthMRNKnight

Joined: 20 Jul 2011Posts: 297

illogicalRogue2 wrote:

Father Tier(What the Holocron considers G and T-level canon) This is the movies and all the tv projects Lucas has personally worked on. ie The Holiday Special and The Clone Wars... Apparently Clone Wars stopped being his project when the 2nd incarnation came along. The Father Tier is considered what you're calling Canon in this case.

Not the Holiday Special, though. Given GL's carte blanche, he of course has to option to disregard something he disowns, and reportedly didn't have a lot to do with anyway. Last we heard, the Special resided at the lower end of the Son Tier, EU pillar, or S-canon.

Quote:

But the levels that we get hung up on. Those are just an internal tracking system... nothing more.

That is oversimplified. The levels still play a role in discrepancy resolution beyond the GL/non-GL dichotomy you present. Furthermore, it follows the Lucas Tier or Pillar system precisely, but is even more detailed and flexible, so it isn't really a matter of fans mistakly thinking the Holocron levels are it, when the Lucas Pillars are where it is really at. It is a matter of the two of them being two different ways to look at the same ting, at least for continuity purposes.
In broad strokes, I agree with you, though. The most important continuity is the one that is defined by being GL or non-GL, and the TCW troubles reflect that importance. And as such, I can excuse you for putting empahsis on this distinction over the Holocron levels. But since they are the same, except where the fanfics and fanfilms are concerned, I don't agree that one can be said to be just for tracking, while the other defines canon. There would be no point in tracking continuity in different ways if that difference didn't have any impact on discrepancy resolution.

Also, under the Holocron system, the EU can retcon the Father pillar away in favor of the Son pillar, even though it happens very rarely.

Quote:

Another fun fact: Star Wars canon was first defined in the first issue of the Lucasfilm magazine, Star Wars Insider:

"'Gospel,' or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelizations. These works spin out of George Lucas' original stories, the rest are written by other writers. However, between us, we've read everything, and much of it is taken into account in the overall continuity. The entire catalog of published works comprises a vast history—with many off-shoots, variations and tangents—like any other well-developed mythology."

Holy SITH! It actually says that the novelizations counted. (unless they only were referring to the film novelizations but they didn't say that.) But as with Lucas he has since retconed what he put in place back then.

Quite right. This statement was made by the old guard of continuity trackers. When Leland came aboard in 2000, things got a lot stricter than they had been. Continuity before Chee apparently consisted of yelling down the hall if someone knew the question the creator was asking for over the phone. Leland also decanonized a lot of the stuff here thought of as gospel, proabably because they fit so poorly with the PT._________________I discuss to learn, not to win. Then again, learning enough tends to translate to victory in the end anyway.

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:58 pm

Message

DancelittleewokEUC Staff

Joined: 15 Sep 2010Posts: 1170Location: Kansas

I keep thinking about how circumstantial continuity is. If that's the case, then retcons should be judged on a case-by-case basis, and we should allow continuity to be customizable. It means continuity, in essence, has no meaning - aside from the films. Or maybe I'm just cynical._________________Observation: Life would be cooler if everyone spoke like HK-47.

I used to get myself pretty worked up about continuity, but when TCW started messing with the Mandolorians, I told myself I should probably take a more relaxed attitude to it.

I think that we should count ourselves lucky that the EU is as continuous as it is. I don't think there is another franchise that offers readers/viewers/gamers the depth of material to explore while keeping the level of continuity we have.

It's also reassuring that if something goes wrong with continuity, that there are people within the organisation that try their best to fix it. To be fair, I think most of the people at Lucasfilm and Del Rey seem to listen to the fans views and take them on board, the exception of course being Mr. Lucas himself.

Not the Holiday Special, though. Given GL's carte blanche, he of course has to option to disregard something he disowns, and reportedly didn't have a lot to do with anyway. Last we heard, the Special resided at the lower end of the Son Tier, EU pillar, or S-canon.

Indeed, he can break his rules and all the rules at his digressions. But per their own definitions the Holiday Special would fall under that ruling. I think he just hopes that because he made it impossible to see without piracy it'll go away and fans will forget about it. _________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:01 pm

Message

UltimatedashKnight

Joined: 20 Jun 2012Posts: 128

Proudfoot wrote:

I used to get myself pretty worked up about continuity, but when TCW started messing with the Mandolorians, I told myself I should probably take a more relaxed attitude to it.

I think that we should count ourselves lucky that the EU is as continuous as it is. I don't think there is another franchise that offers readers/viewers/gamers the depth of material to explore while keeping the level of continuity we have.

It's also reassuring that if something goes wrong with continuity, that there are people within the organisation that try their best to fix it. To be fair, I think most of the people at Lucasfilm and Del Rey seem to listen to the fans views and take them on board, the exception of course being Mr. Lucas himself.

That is oversimplified. The levels still play a role in discrepancy resolution beyond the GL/non-GL dichotomy you present. Furthermore, it follows the Lucas Tier or Pillar system precisely, but is even more detailed and flexible, so it isn't really a matter of fans mistakly thinking the Holocron levels are it, when the Lucas Pillars are where it is really at. It is a matter of the two of them being two different ways to look at the same ting, at least for continuity purposes.

See for me the Holocron only sorts out the EU and the EU is seprate from Canon per GL and almost everything so if that holds true than all the Holocron to me is any more is for internal purposes - after all the EU doesn't count anymore. It only counts as it's own which while it is- it ISN'T.

We fans use it for most of us see continuity as LARGER than GL's canon. This is the rub. Because of this we have given the Holocron more significance- for it is more signifigant to an EU fan than a film fan with no EU knowledge.

For a film only fan the Holocron is meaningless. It holds no truth for them.

DarthMRN wrote:

In broad strokes, I agree with you, though.

Indeed! You and I DMRN go way back! TOS: Force Philosophy days back!

DarthMRN wrote:

The most important continuity is the one that is defined by being GL or non-GL, and the TCW troubles reflect that importance. And as such, I can excuse you for putting empahsis on this distinction over the Holocron levels. But since they are the same, except where the fanfics and fanfilms are concerned, I don't agree that one can be said to be just for tracking, while the other defines canon. There would be no point in tracking continuity in different ways if that difference didn't have any impact on discrepancy resolution.

I think by making it so convoluted all they have done is perpetuated the lie that there is one continuity when there is not. There is THE CANON, there is the continuity of that, the Continuity of the EU that spins out of that- then their is the continuity being made retroactively that smashes previous continuity thus rendering continuity a joke.

Why create T-level if nothing more than tracking? Same with this rumored D-level for Detours. Why not an N-level for it? Again Tracking is the only logical answer that comes to my mind.

DarthMRN wrote:

Also, under the Holocron system, the EU can retcon the Father pillar away in favor of the Son pillar, even though it happens very rarely.

Maybe this is over stating? IDK but the EU can't trump the G-level stuff- take Mace's R8 droid- it's a literal R8 Model when they hadn't been made- the EU could have kept saying it was a serial number but they did not. They went with GL's view which was why not? I'm not hindered by continuity.
Any others tend to end up being reasons for people to get angry with the EU. And they get moved/ retconed back- the whole Is no Dark Side- that came full circle.

Quote:

Quite right. This statement was made by the old guard of continuity trackers. When Leland came aboard in 2000, things got a lot stricter than they had been. Continuity before Chee apparently consisted of yelling down the hall if someone knew the question the creator was asking for over the phone. Leland also decanonized a lot of the stuff here thought of as gospel, proabably because they fit so poorly with the PT.

Yeah. The issue is taking older things that weren''t meant for this continuity and trying to make them work when they should have split a long while back. Somedays I long for GL to go 7, 8, and 9 just so the EU has to stand on its own._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

I keep thinking about how circumstantial continuity is. If that's the case, then retcons should be judged on a case-by-case basis, and we should allow continuity to be customizable. It means continuity, in essence, has no meaning - aside from the films. Or maybe I'm just cynical.

Yes, yes, and yes. Precisely. The Films are canon and only the films follow continuity, and even that is subject to the maker's whims. The biggest wave maker has been the new projects- GL doesn't care about Canon or continuity he has never had to. This can leave a foul taste in many an long term (bought a lot of books) EU Fans' mouth._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:47 pm

Message

WerehunterKnight

Joined: 08 Apr 2011Posts: 362

As I've said before, it's really unrealistic to think that a universe that spans so many different forms of media is going to have solid continuity. It's just not going to happen and anyone who is wanting it to be that way is in for disappointment. There's just no way that they'll be able to keep everything straight with that many companies, not to mention people, involved.

Most TV shows that run for several years can't do it, even if they keep the same executive producer the entire time. Especially when you consider all the things that are discussed and rejected to tweaked that we as fans never know about. Five years down the line a writer could easily think back on something that was discussed and rejected but mistakenly think was accepted or forget about a tweak to a story pitch they had.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan on continuity. It's the reason that most of the books I own are part of serial fictional universes. But I'm not going to allow myself to get bogged down in it and let it ruin my enjoyment of newer stories.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan on continuity. It's the reason that most of the books I own are part of serial fictional universes. But I'm not going to allow myself to get bogged down in it and let it ruin my enjoyment of newer stories.

I hear ya Were, though I don't let it ruin my enjoyment. I just find it makes me less Sparkle-Eyes when it comes to GL. For me he's just one of many writers/ creators who has had a hand shaping the SW Universe, it's lucky (or unlucky) happenstance he's been able to have the ability to toss things like canon and continuity out the window when it suits him.

I'd say if anything I just find the current mess of canon/ continuity and how they are working with it disappointing. They COULD have an even better handle on it, they just choose to say OH WELL._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:22 pm

Message

Mad WookKnight

Joined: 14 Apr 2011Posts: 464

Not sure who may have seen this, but here's a Genndy Tartakovsky interview regarding his show getting bumped from continuity. Pretty interesting.

HP: There can never be too many "Star Wars" references.

GT: Well, I did "Star Wars." I think I did more before I did it. But then, after i did it, I'm like, "Wow, I actually did the real thing." So I have to back off. A little goes a long way.

HP: Speaking of your version of "Clone Wars," does it bother you that there's another one and that the one you did seems to no longer be canon?

GT: Yeah. I mean, you know, of course it bothers me. But, you know, it's George's characters. It's his world and he has to do what he has to do. And the new ones are totally inspired by what we did: A lot of the same character designs and stuff.

HP: Does that part bother you, too?

GT: No, again, it's not my characters, so he can do whatever he wants. And the story was also that I was going to do it. I was going to go to Lucas and be their John Lasseter-type of person and do a feature and supervise the "Star Wars" television show. And things kind of fell apart, blah blah blah. But, yeah, I'm super proud of what we did. And I felt like we did a justice to "Star Wars" and as a fan.

HP: I mean, people haven't forgotten them, even though we are supposed to.

GT: That's the one thing that is kind of weird that he just wants to wipe it off. Because we used to be in the encyclopedias, some of the characters that we created. And now they're gone. And you can't get the DVD and all of this other stuff. And it's like, whatever. What are you going to do, right? It existed.

HP: But it feels like its been thrown on the scrapheap with the Holiday Special.

GT: I think George is brilliant. And I think he just wants to ... I don't know the reasoning, exactly. But from any sense that I can make out of it, he just wants it to be clean. But there's so much fiction that's out with "Star Wars," I don't think it would matter.

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 6:11 pm

Message

DarthMRNKnight

Joined: 20 Jul 2011Posts: 297

illogicalRogue2 wrote:

See for me the Holocron only sorts out the EU and the EU is seprate from Canon per GL and almost everything so if that holds true than all the Holocron to me is any more is for internal purposes

Leland wrote:

The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don't use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level.

It is for internal purposes. I doubt fans were supposed to adopt the Holocron system the way we have.

Quote:

I think by making it so convoluted all they have done is perpetuated the lie that there is one continuity when there is not.

Maybe. But since it is for internal purposes first and foremost, I think perpetuating the illusion has just been a lucky side-effect.

Quote:

Why create T-level if nothing more than tracking?

Because it creates an easy tie-breaker for discrepancies. Unless there are extenuating circumstances that call for going with the lower ranked source, the higher ranking source will take precedent, and its opponents will be the one retconned out of existence. In this case that means T loses to G, but wins over C, unless there are very good reasons to go with the lower rank.

Quote:

Same with this rumored D-level for Detours. Why not an N-level for it? Again Tracking is the only logical answer that comes to my mind.

I'm pretty sure that was a joke. It will most likely be Infinites, unless GL decides to meddle.

Quote:

Maybe this is over stating? IDK but the EU can't trump the G-level stuff- take Mace's R8 droid- it's a literal R8 Model when they hadn't been made- the EU could have kept saying it was a serial number but they did not. They went with GL's view which was why not? I'm not hindered by continuity.

Leland wrote:

This is how I use it:

- We need a list of characters from the films. I'll do a search of characters by G-canon.
- We need a list of some planets from the films and the EU. I'll do a search for planets sorted by canon to determine which ones are going to recognized by more people.
- Source A contradicts Source B. More likely than not, if Source A is from the films and Source B is from the EU, we'll use Source A. Of course, there can always be exceptions which is why the case-by-case determination is always in effect no matter what the Sources.

The EU is beholden to GL, as you mention yourself. So it will bend over backwards to accomodate him. This option exists for when there are reasons to defy GL in spite of this. For example to avoid going with the implication from RotJ that Boba Fett died. Or avoiding that someone who has fallen to the dark side can never come back, per Yoda. Either of these would be catastrophic for the EU, and seem like obvious reasons for the exception to GL's supremacy existing. Some droid not having been invented yet is nothing by comparison, insignificant, and not nearly a good enough reason for GL's emplyees to undermine his vision.

Mad Wook wrote:

Not sure who may have seen this, but here's a Genndy Tartakovsky interview regarding his show getting bumped from continuity. Pretty interesting.

All I get from that interview is what a poor understanding both Tartakovsky and the interviewer have of how continuity works. By their reasoning, everything that has been contradicted by TCW is now Infinites, and that isn't the case.

Here is from the lastest Leland blog post:

Leland wrote:

All of these episodes take place early on during the Clone Wars, mere months following the Battle of Geonosis seen in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Many of the dates and events on previously existing EU Clone Wars timelines have been condensed into this period before the events of “Cat and Mouse.”
[...]
We lump the earlier Genndy stuff with all the rest of the pre-TCW EU.